Core Addictions and Recovery Education for Nurse Practitioners (CARE4NPs)
Saginaw Valley State University
4-Year IHE
Healthcare Industry
Organizations Involved
Occupations Impacted
Family Nurse Practitioners; Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners
Workforce Development Focus
Improving the quality of healthcare workforce
Workforce Issue Addressed
Training current healthcare professionals in new techniques or practices; Training current healthcare professionals so that they will be able to serve a broader population; Training current healthcare professionals in SDOH, implicit bias, or on other subjects that will help professionals provide more culturally-competent and/or patient-centered care
Description
Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) received a 3-year grant from SAMHSA to improve access to evidence-based medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) patients in rural Michigan. Their project is called CARE4NPs. One way SVSU is working to improve access is by increasing the number of nurse practitioners and other eligible providers in rural Michigan who prescribe buprenorphine. An "addictions" curricular thread is added to their Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) programs. Additionally, CARE4NPs is working to improve access by removing obstacles that prevent waivered providers from initiating and expanding MAT with their OUD patients. SVSU is including buprenorphine waiver training for 165 NPs over the grant period. Also, grant funding will be used to expand SVSU's Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Project ECHO curriculum to meet eligibility criteria for buprenorphine waiver training and to include education about topics that continue to limit buprenorphine prescribing practices.